How to Maintain Good Health: A Friendly Reminder
The Self Improvement Blog has posted a nice short overview of what it takes to maintain basic good health. It’s nice because a small reminder every now and then could do us good. The main components the post talks about are exercise,
Exercise burns excessive fats and calories in your body. You can keep yourself less vulnerable from chronic diseases like diabetes, heart diseases and osteoporosis by having a regular exercise. You can do biking, swimming and jogging with your family to enjoy physical exercises better.
eating,
A good and healthy food will feed your hungry body with good nutrients and needed energy. You can eat healthy foods by choosing those with low to moderate fat, low calories and high in protein foods. These foods will be enough for your body.
and sleep.
Sleep is also important in maintaining your healthy body. It is very vital for you to rest after a hard day to repair any damages in your body. You have consider sleeping at least 6-8 hours a day to maintain a fit body.
Click here to read the full story.
A new study by the researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands have examined the effect of the combination of exercise and therapy in those suffering from fibromyalgia.
So van Koulil and her colleagues decided to test a “tailored” approach to CBT and exercise, the researcher told Reuters Health by email. The study focused on so-called high-risk fibromyalgia patients — those whose symptoms were causing a significant amount of distress, based on screening questionnaires looking at anxiety and depression symptoms. The researchers separated the patients into two groups based on their usual manner of dealing with their pain: those who avoided any activities they feared would worsen their pain; and those who kept up various activities despite their pain.
Patients in both groups were randomly assigned to either undergo 16 sessions of CBT-plus-exercise therapy or go on a wait-list for treatment.
In general, CBT aims to help people recognize thought patterns and emotional responses that contribute to their symptoms, and give them practical ways to change their behavior. For patients in this study who typically sought to avoid pain, the CBT sessions were designed to help them deal with their fear of pain and set goals for boosting their daily activities.
Overall, the researchers found that immediately after the treatment period, and six months later, both therapy groups were doing better than their counterparts on the waiting list. At the six-month mark, two-thirds of treated patients had “clinically significant” improvements in at least some measure of physical well- being — pain, fatigue or disability — versus one-third of wait-list patients.
Click here to read more about this study.
Don’t Let Knee Arthritis Slow You Down
A new post over at Medical News Today offers hope to knee arthritis patients.
Middle-aged men and women with osteoarthritis of the knee now have more options than ever before for treatments that may allow them to remain active in the sports they love
According to Dr. Brian Feeley, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery, University of California, San Francisco, “The number of patients between the ages of 40 and 60 who are experiencing knee arthritis is growing, and unlike most older patients, this patient population presents a unique set of treatment challenges.”
An increasing trend within this age group is that these patients want to continue playing the sports they love and remaining active for many years after developing arthritis. “As a result, orthopaedic surgeons and other physicians need to come up with different treatment strategies including non-operative treatments or even cartilage restoration procedures, to address pain and functionality, and to help keep patients as active as possible,” added Dr. Feeley.
For patients suffering with arthritis of the knee, Dr. Feeley recommends the following approach to help patients remain active:
- Take control of your situation – understand the disease process and learn about different treatment options.
- Work with your physician to come up with both short-term and long-term courses of treatment to help manage your symptoms early while maintaining the health of your knee and body for as long as possible.
- Be flexible with your activities and do not put the exact same stresses on the knee everyday. In some cases, mild activity modification such as switching to more biking or swimming and less running may make a huge difference in the number and severity of symptoms. Trying new activities also can help keep morale high.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions of your physician. Look for a doctor who can help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of each treatment option, and who is willing to work with you to tailor a treatment strategy to your individual needs.
Click here to read more.
The Correlation Between Health and Happiness
A provocative article over at the Self Improvement Blog tackles the idea that our emotional state can effect our physical health and our overall well-being.
The article highlights a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that looked at the correlation between a number of physiological measures (blood pressure, cortisol levels) of health and happiness ratings.
…the happiest participants had the best results across the board for the health markers. I.e. happier people had lower heart rates, and an average of 32% lower levels of cortisol which can have a direct effect on other elements such as blood sugar.
The article also highlights another study by researchers at Carnegie Mellow University that showed that happier people were less likely to get sick.
Wrapping it up are 7 tips on how to increase happiness in our lives. Some of these tips include basic things like exercise, sleep, and utilizing your strengths.
Click here to check it out.
Here are some other resources on help for increasing one’s happiness and ultimately one’s health.
Photo credit: Flickr
Low Back Pain Is No Reason To Stay In Bed
For those who are struggling with low-back pain, a new study offers more evidence that staying in bed isn’t necessarily the best.
An article over at Medical News Today highlights the results from this study:
“Normal daily activity seems to be the best way for patients with low-back pain to get better,” said Kristin Thuve Dahm, a researcher at the Norwegian Centre for the Health Services and lead author of the review. Active patients experience less pain and avoid the side effects of immobility.
Researchers analyzed data from almost 500 patients and concluded that in groups where daily activity was encouraged over bed rest, pain intensity decreased.
The American Heart Association has some great tips on how to remain physically active in your daily life. They offer tips for when you’re at home, at the office, and even at play. Click here to see this list.
Getting More Sleep
We’ve all heard it before. Getting more sleep is better for us. But it’s not easy. With hectic schedules and busy home life, it is getting harder and harder to really get the quantity and quality of sleep that our bodies need. However, research shows that even the slightest increase of the amount of sleep can have a great effect of health.
According to a recent article in The Reporter, several studies have been conducted on the effect of increasing the amount of sleep per night.
Stanford University researchers set up an experiment with seven members of the Cardinal football team, asking them to make an extra effort to get more sleep during the season — a minimum of 10 hours a night — and kept track of their wakefulness with a monitor and through a sleep journal. After seven to eight weeks of sleep extension, the average sprint times on two distances decreased by one-tenth of a second.
The article goes on to highlight several other studies that measured the effect of sleep in groups of daytime and nighttime workers.
Another article over at Dr. Cutler highlights a study on chronic insomnia and its health effects.
Scientists surveyed 2,242 participants in the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study for their findings. Participants completed two to three mailed surveys for years 1989, 1994 and 2000. Participants were considered to have chronic insomnia if they reported insomnia symptoms on at least two of the surveys. Results indicate that the adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality was three times higher in people with chronic insomnia than in people without insomnia.
So, now we know that the more sleep, the better. But, how do we go about getting more sleep? Here are few articles to help answer that question.
Emotions and Health
The World Health Organization defines normal emotional health as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.”
The American Psychological Association says that emotional health,
can lead to success in work, relationships and health. In the past, researchers believed that success made people happy. Newer research reveals that it’s the other way around. Happy people are more likely to work toward goals, find the resources they need and attract others with their energy and optimism—key building blocks of success.
A great post over at the Self Improvement Blog looks at the importance of emotional health and its effect on physical health.
Millions of people like you visit medical offices every day, hoping for relief from their current physical symptom. The problem is that when you don’t deal with the roots of the symptom, the emotional pain will simply emerge in another way over time. The good news I have to offer you today is that it’s never too late to change the unhealthy patterns you’ve created!
Here are some more resources on evaluating and improving one’s emotional health.
The Path to Successful Aging
A great post over at Third Age highlights the path to successful aging.
Many years ago, in the early 1960s, a group of noted psychologists and sociologists at the University of Chicago decided to try to chart the pathways that people in their middle and later years take as they adapt to the challenges of aging.
Click here to read more.
Helpful Tips on Getting Started with Yoga
The benefits of yoga are numerous. Having been around for over 5,000 years, more and more Americans are taking to it and enjoying its health benefits. Yoga poses, according to WebMD,
work by safely stretching your muscles. This releases the lactic acid that builds up with muscle use and causes stiffness, tension, pain, and fatigue. In addition, yoga increases the range of motion in joints. It may also increase lubrication in the joints. The outcome is a sense of ease and fluidity throughout your body.
Yoga stretches not only your muscles but all of the soft tissues of your body. That includes ligaments, tendons, and the fascia sheath that surrounds your muscles. And no matter your level of yoga, you most likely will see benefits in a very short period of time. In one study, participants had up to 35% improvement in flexibility after only eight weeks of yoga. The greatest gains were in shoulder and trunk flexibility.
Third Age offers some helpful tips on how to get into a basic yoga routine:
Look up some basic moves before a class. You can find instructions online or in books and videos for beginners. Some common postures are Downward Facing Dog, Forward Bend, The Bridge, Warrior II and The Cobra. Start with the ones you think you could do.
Watch others in a class… You can learn a lot about postures and how to adapt them based on individual fitness levels from more experienced students.
Don’t give up too quickly. There are many styles of yoga, not to mention different studios and instructors you may prefer. Hint: many beginners like the Hatha or Vinyasa style.
Here are also a few other resources:
A great article over at Medical News Today highlights the importance of stroke patients getting in some exercise, no matter the intensity.
“The power of physical activity to raise the spirits of recovering stroke patients is stronger than anyone suspected,” Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher Dr. Jocelyn Harris told Canadian Stroke Congress, co-hosted by the Canadian Stroke Network, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, and the Canadian Stroke Consortium.
Researched looked at over 100 patients who had suffered from strokes split into groups. One group spent just 35 minutes four times a week performing a non-intensive arm exercise program called GRASP. This group saw a 33% improvement in overall arm and hand function.
“At four weeks, the GRASP patients also reported less depressive symptoms and greater change scores than those in the control group did,” says Dr. Harris.
For more information about stroke and the research at the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation, click here.
